Safety associated with the use of household appliances is a great concern for people. This is especially the case as more and more electronic devices are used in homes today. Accordingly, it is desired to provide the electric receptacles in the walls of ordinary households with safety features. However, most receptacles in homes are ordinary receptacles without the capability to protect against leakage of electric current. When these ordinary receptacles are used, leakage of electric current or a shock hazard may occur.
Receptacles with safety features that guard against the leakage of electric current, such as a ground fault circuit interrupter (GFCI) and an arc fault circuit interrupter (AFCI), have been in existence since the early 1970s. However, until recently, most of these receptacles did not possess a reverse wiring protection feature. Reverse wiring means that load wires are mistakenly connected to a line side of the receptacle and line wires are mistakenly connected to a load side of the receptacle. When this occurs, although the input end and the output end of the receptacle are still electrically connected, the receptacle no long provides fault-protection. Without a reverse wiring protection feature, a consumer, after mistakenly reversing the line wire and load wire connections to the receptacle may be misled to believe that the receptacle is still functioning properly and will detect a fault condition. However, the consumer does not know that the fault-protection feature is not operational. The continued use of a reverse wired receptacle might cause injury to users and damage to the household electronic appliances, as well as damage to real property.
Accordingly, there is a need for a circuit-interrupting device that provides reverse wiring protection and that may also protect against fault conditions, such as ground faults and arc faults, among others.